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Interpreting China's Grand Strategy
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Chapter Four
CHINA’S CURRENT SECURITY STRATEGY:
FEATURES AND IMPLICATIONS
The five basic features of Chinese security strategy and behavior pre-
sented in the previous chapter have persisted to the present day.
However, contact with industrialized nation-states, the collapse of
the traditional Confucian-Legalist order, and the emergence of Chi-
nese nationalism have brought about several major changes in the
specific definition of China’s security objectives and concerns (i.e.,
what is understood by domestic order and well-being, threats to
Chinese territory, and Chinese geopolitical preeminence) and hence
the specific means by which such objectives or concerns could be
addressed in the modern era. These changes generally brought
about a hybrid “weak-strong” state security strategy that combined
traditional “strong-state” efforts to control the strategic periphery
with elements of a “weak-state” approach employing a relatively un-
sophisticated, territorial defense-oriented force structure and an ex-
tensive level of involvement in diplomatic balance and maneuver.
97
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98 Interpreting China’s Grand Strategy: Past, Present, and Future
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China’s Current Security Strategy: Features and Implications 99
At the same time, the continuation, over the long term, of China’s re-
cent economic successes will likely require far more extensive struc-
tural and procedural reforms than have taken place to date. These
include more thoroughgoing price, tax, fiscal, banking, and legal re-
forms; the further liberalization of foreign investment practices,
trade, and currency convertibility; the reform or abandonment of
many state-owned enterprises; and the implementation of more ef-
fective environmental protection measures.4 Such actions, at least in
the near term, could significantly reduce growth rates, aggravate ex-
______________
1The scope and significance of China’s economic and technological achievements
during the reform era are summarized in World Bank (1997a), pp. 1–16.
2Li (1990).
3A good exposition of the role of economic considerations in China’s grand strategy,
coupled with a defense of the claim that global stability will increasingly derive from
Chinese strength, can be found in Song (1986).
4World Bank (1997a), pp. 17–96, for an excellent overview of the requirements for
continued economic growth in China and the problems confronting future reforms.
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100 Interpreting China’s Grand Strategy: Past, Present, and Future
______________
5 For example, extensive fiscal reform and environmental protection efforts could
temporarily divert resources from more productive pursuits, far-reaching state-en-
terprise reforms could exacerbate worker insecurity and lead to high levels of social
unrest, and greater marketization and privatization efforts could provoke strong resis-
tance at all levels of the Chinese system from profit-seeking capitalist government and
party bureaucrats. See Swaine (1995b), pp. 57–80; Harding (1987), Chapter 10; and
Lardy (1998).
6For a brief overview of the growth in capabilities along China’s periphery, see Rohwer
(1993).
7An overview of the processes leading to the rise of the peripheral states can be found
in Tellis et al. (1998).
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China’s Current Security Strategy: Features and Implications 101
______________
8A useful survey of the power and preferences of the Asian states can be found in Ma-
lik (1993).
9The patterns of economic integration of the Asia-Pacific region are detailed in World
Bank (1993).
10Snyder (1995).
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102 Interpreting China’s Grand Strategy: Past, Present, and Future
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11 Useful surveys of Chinese interests in Central Asia can be found in Munro; and
Burles (1999).
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China’s Current Security Strategy: Features and Implications 103
and Asia since the 1950s.12 On the other hand, and partly as a result
of this dynamic process of expanding privatization, the most devel-
oped industrial states, and particularly the United States, achieved
major advances in technology that in turn served not only to greatly
increase the lethality and effectiveness of their military capabilities
but to actually increase the power differentials between the West and
its many competitors.
______________
12This dynamic, together with the many changes occurring after 1971, is explored in
some detail in Spero (1985), pp. 25–168.
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104 Interpreting China’s Grand Strategy: Past, Present, and Future
The utopian and highly disruptive policies of the Great Leap Forward
and the Cultural Revolution of the 1950s and 1960s created enor-
mous chaos and uncertainty within China. By the 1960s and 1970s, a
combination of continued population pressures, the institutional-
ized inefficiencies of a generally autarkic development strategy, and
the highly rigid, repressive, and centralized political system associ-
ated with the Maoist regime had created great impoverishment and
disillusionment. Taken together, such developments not only weak-
ened the faith of ordinary citizens and officials alike in the leadership
of the Communist Party and its official statist development strategy,
they also resulted, more problematically, in a corrosion of political
culture, which brought about the loss of leadership and popular
virtue, made manifest by the appearance of pervasive corruption and
the rise of a self-serving officialdom. These developments have sig-
nificantly exacerbated the challenge to maintaining domestic order
and well-being that resulted from earlier modern developments
(including increases in China’s population, discussed above), and
place enormous pressure on the Chinese state to sustain high levels
of economic growth over the long term.
______________
13For a review of some of these challenges, see Harding (1994b).
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China’s Current Security Strategy: Features and Implications 105
______________
14Whiting (1995), pp. 732–734; Zhao (1997); and Pye (1995), p. 582.
15Kim (1997), p. 248.
16Kim (1997), p. 248.
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106 Interpreting China’s Grand Strategy: Past, Present, and Future
By the mid 1980s, however, most Chinese civilian and military lead-
ers clearly recognized that a strong and stable military force could
not be built through a continued reliance on the failed autarkic and
excessively ideological policies of the past. This recognition was fa-
cilitated, over time, by the gradual passing of those leaders, such as
Mao Zedong, who were sympathetic to such policies for political or
ideological reasons and was greatly spurred by the major military ad-
vances attained by Western powers—advances that were subse-
quently labeled the “military-technical revolution” (MTR) by Soviet
theorists.17 As a result of these factors, China’s past impractical and
insular approach to military modernization gave way to a new effort
at examining and selectively incorporating advanced foreign military
technologies while attempting to “indigenize” these qualities
through licensed coproduction of complete systems, the incorpora-
tion of critical subcomponents, or the domestic absorption of know-
how, wherever possible.18 This effort, in turn, required the creation
of a more efficient, innovative, and productive defense industry es-
tablishment and the application of more purely professional criteria
to military training and personnel selection. All of these require-
ments imply a much greater level of involvement with and depen-
dence upon foreign, and especially Western, defense-related re-
sources and know-how. They also demand the resolution of major,
______________
17 The key Soviet proponent of the MTR was Marshal N. V. Ogarkov. See Ogarkov
(1982)—his seminal paper on the subject.
18Gill and Kim (1995) for a detailed review of China’s arms acquisition strategy and
constraints.
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China’s Current Security Strategy: Features and Implications 107
______________
19Such problems include (a) excessive adherence to self-reliance as a guiding prin-
ciple; (b) lack of horizontal integration; (c) separation from the civilian commercial
sector; (d) lack of skilled experts, managers, and labor; (e) poor infrastructure; and (f)
technology absorption problems. Swaine (1996b).
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108 Interpreting China’s Grand Strategy: Past, Present, and Future
______________
20Following Chester Bernard, Waltz (1979), p. 113, uses this concept to describe rela-
tions between coordinate units. Although the relations among China’s top leaders are
not always coordinate relations, the mutual adjustment and accommodation that in-
creasingly take place among various personalities and groups justifies the use of the
phrase even in an environment that has room for nominal hierarchies.
21For a discussion of the evolution of the system of “collective leadership,” see Wang
(1995), pp. 103–119.
22Wang (1995), pp. 103–119.
23 Pei (1998) and the discussion below of the prospects for long-term democratic
change, for a detailed review of some of these developments.
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China’s Current Security Strategy: Features and Implications 109
______________
24Swaine (1995b), pp. 38–39.
25For further details on these and other facets of China’s leadership, see Chapter Five
and Swaine (1995b), pp. 3–39, 95–104.
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110 Interpreting China’s Grand Strategy: Past, Present, and Future
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26For details, see Harding (1992), and Pollack (1999).
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China’s Current Security Strategy: Features and Implications 111
state in the modern era thus occurred at a time when the most im-
portant entity in the international system—the United States—
appeared to be more supportive of China whereas its most
consequential and proximate adversary—the Soviet Union—was
progressively decaying in power-political capacity. This radical
diminution in the range of traditional threats visible since the early
years of the Cold War provided China with a substantial measure of
political cover under which it could pursue the internal economic
reforms—finally embarked upon in 1978 and accelerated in the mid
to late 1980s—without excessive risk.
______________
27Chen (1990).
28Cited in Kim (1996), p. 11.
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112 Interpreting China’s Grand Strategy: Past, Present, and Future
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China’s Current Security Strategy: Features and Implications 113
______________
29Liska (1977).
30Waltz (1979), p. 118.
31The problem of relative gains and its effect on cooperation is discussed in Grieco
(1988).
32As Jiang Zemin candidly admitted, Beijing cannot afford to be aggressive because
“China needs a long-lasting peaceful international environment for its development.”
Jiang Zemin (1995).
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114 Interpreting China’s Grand Strategy: Past, Present, and Future
How this strategy has concretely manifested itself will now be exam-
ined in the context of the policies China appears to be pursuing in
four separate issue-areas (a) policies toward the United States and
other powers, (b) policies toward military modernization, (c) policies
toward territorial claims and the recourse to force, and (d) policies
toward international regimes.
______________
33This feature is also described as a “mini/maxi” code of conduct keyed to the max-
imization of security and other benefits through free rides or noncommital strategies
and the minimization of costs to capabilities, status, or influence. Kim (1999).
34Yi Xiaoxiong (1994), p. 681.
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China’s Current Security Strategy: Features and Implications 115
______________
35Kim (1996), p. 5.
36Yi Xiaoxiong (1994), p. 685.
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116 Interpreting China’s Grand Strategy: Past, Present, and Future
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37Weakening the U.S.-ROC relationship has proved much more difficult than Beijing
originally anticipated, in part because it is connected to U.S. domestic politics and the
strong linkages between Taiwan and influential members of the U.S. Congress. China
has repeatedly sought to increase its leverage over the United States concerning this
issue, at times by offering to reduce or eliminate its exports of weapons of mass de-
struction and their associated delivery systems to some South Asian and Middle East-
ern states in return for reductions in U.S. military assistance to Taiwan.
38 For a representative example of the official Chinese position on U.S. strategic
relations with Japan, see “Official Meets Japanese Envoy Over Defense Guidelines”
(1998).
39A good discussion of China’s interest in most favored nation status and in GATT
more generally can be found in Power (1994); and Pearson (1999).
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China’s Current Security Strategy: Features and Implications 117
port its admittance into the WTO as a full member, but on what
amounts to preferential terms as a developing country. Admittance to
the WTO is important to the success of Beijing’s export-led growth
strategy in that it allows China access to multiple international mar-
kets on uniformly preferential terms; further, such access is ensured
through a multilateral institution not fully under the control of the
United States, thereby offering China opportunities to purse com-
mercial and political interests (including those relating to Taiwan)
outside of the restraints that may be episodically imposed within the
framework of the Sino-U.S. bilateral relationship. Finally, it provides
China with better cover against the protectionist policies of other de-
veloping countries while simultaneously accelerating Beijing’s inte-
gration into the global economy.40
In addition to these direct political and economic efforts, there are
other indirect efforts at cooptation as well. These include exploiting
U.S. pluralist society to undercut any adverse political objectives that
may be pursued by the U.S. government. In this context, corporate
America, with its significant economic interests deriving from large
investments in China, becomes a powerful instrument conditioning
the shape of U.S. strategic policy toward China. And Beijing has not
hesitated to use its sovereign powers of preferential access and large
commercial orders to encourage U.S. business groups to lobby the
U.S. government for consequential changes in its strategic policies as
the price for continued, profitable, interactions with China. 41 These
changes were usually sought in the issue-areas of human rights, the
rules governing technology transfers, and nonproliferation. To be
sure, the incentives for such lobbying exist even in the absence of
any direct Chinese governmental intervention, but that implies only
that the indirect mechanisms of prevention are even more profitable
if China can secure a variety of advantageous political outcomes with
little or no effort on its own part.
______________
40Because Beijing seeks membership as a developing country, the United States has in
the past blocked Chinese membership on the grounds that such status would allow
China to continue a variety of restrictive trading practices even as it enjoys the fruits of
preferential access to the markets of many developed countries. The rationale for
China’s wish to enter the WTO as a developing country is explicated in Wong (1996);
and in Pearson (1999), pp. 176–177.
41Hsiung (1995), pp. 580–584.
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118 Interpreting China’s Grand Strategy: Past, Present, and Future
______________
42A typical example of Chinese thinking in this regard is Yu (1997).
43Such efforts do not appear to be part of a concerted, systematic strategy, however,
but rather reflect the views of individual Chinese leaders, especially more conservative
military figures.
44 The standard presentation of the New Security Concept is contained in State
Council Information Office (1998).
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China’s Current Security Strategy: Features and Implications 119
Where military products from Great Britain, France, and Israel are
concerned, Chinese interests revolve more around specific subsys-
tems rather than finished platforms or weapons systems, but China’s
primary strategic interest in developing relations with these states,
and with the Europeans more generally, consists of being able to en-
sure access to diversified sources of civilian and dual-use technolo-
gies and, more broadly, to preserve positive political and economic
relations that contribute to China’s overall development.47 Where
relations with China’s immediate East Asian neighbors such as Ko-
rea, Japan, and even Taiwan are concerned, the main objective of
______________
45“Can a Bear Love a Dragon?” (1997); and Anderson (1997). The notion that the Sino-
Russian relationship constitutes “the beginning of a new quadrilateral alignment in
East Asia in which a continental Russo-Chinese bloc balances a ‘maritime’ American-
Japanese bloc” (Garver, 1998, Chapter Five) is at the very least extremely premature.
46Blank (1996). At the same time, Russia’s leadership apparently disagrees over the
appropriate level and composition of Russian arms sales to China.
47Gill and Kim (1995).
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120 Interpreting China’s Grand Strategy: Past, Present, and Future
______________
48Shambaugh (1996b), pp. 1301–1302.
49Yi Xiaoxiong (1994), p. 678.
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China’s Current Security Strategy: Features and Implications 121
______________
50Yi Xiaoxiong (1994), p. 678.
51A good summary of the multidimensional facets of China’s military modernization
can be found in Shambaugh and Yang (1997).
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122 Interpreting China’s Grand Strategy: Past, Present, and Future
______________
52For an analysis of the evolving doctrinal justifications of China’s nuclear modern-
ization effort, see Johnston (1995/96).
53China’s development of tactical nuclear weapons, principally in the form of artillery
warheads, atomic demolition munitions, and shells for multiple rocket systems,
apparently began in the 1970s in response to increasing military tensions with the
former Soviet Union. It has continued since, however, despite the collapse of the
USSR and the improvement of political relations with all significant military powers
along China’s borders. These capabilities have never been acknowledged by China
but observations of People’s Liberation Army (PLA) training exercises and
underground nuclear tests have led many observers to conclude that such capabilities
exist. See Caldwell and Lennon (1995), pp. 29–30.
54Schlesinger (1967), pp. 12–13.
55Goldstein (1992).
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China’s Current Security Strategy: Features and Implications 123
______________
56Caldwell and Lennon (1995), p. 30.
57On Chinese warhead R&D objectives, see Garrett and Glazer (1995/96).
58 One caveat to this general statement could exist, however. Some observers of
China’s nuclear weapons modernization program believe that Beijing has recently
decided to enhance significantly its theater nuclear weapons capability as its only
effective means of deterring the threat or use by the United States of highly effective
long-range precision-guided, and stealthy conventional weaponry. Such weapons
were used by the United States with virtual impunity during the Kosovo conflict of
1998.
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124 Interpreting China’s Grand Strategy: Past, Present, and Future
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59Chu (1994), pp. 186–190.
60Munro (1994); and Godwin (1997).
61Chu (1994), pp. 187–188. Also see Swaine (1998b).
62Chu (1994); Swaine (1998b); and Godwin (1997).
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China’s Current Security Strategy: Features and Implications 125
______________
63See Frolov (1998) for a review of China’s modernization initiatives precipitated by
the lessons of the Gulf War.
64Godwin (1992).
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126 Interpreting China’s Grand Strategy: Past, Present, and Future
______________
65A good summary of Chinese efforts in this regard can be found in Khalilzad et al.
(1999) and Stokes (1999).
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China’s Current Security Strategy: Features and Implications 127
littoral. Serving this objective by itself will likely require that the Chi-
nese military be able to at least hold extraregional forces at risk, if not
master them entirely. The quest for increased diplomatic and politi-
cal leverage, therefore, has already begun in terms of efforts to opera-
tionalize extended sea and information-denial capabilities. These
include developing new maritime and space-based surveillance ca-
pabilities, new modernized diesel and nuclear attack submarines
incorporating several Russian technologies and subsystems, new
surface combatants equipped with better surface-to-surface and sur-
face-to-air capabilities, new air-, surface-, and subsurface-launched
tactical cruise missiles, possibly new directed-energy weapon
programs, and new information-warfare initiatives in addition to
exploring the offensive use of space.66 Although many of these
programs remain in the very early stages of development, when
combined with new kinds of naval aviation capabilities in the coming
decades, they could eventually coalesce into capabilities that will
allow for an extended Chinese naval presence and power projection
capability throughout much of East Asia.67
______________
66Stokes (1999).
67Godwin (1997).
68For an excellent analysis of this concept, see Huang (1994).
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128 Interpreting China’s Grand Strategy: Past, Present, and Future
force structure over the long term, and they no doubt justify the PLA
Navy’s modernization agenda in competition with the other armed
services. But they do not provide programmatic guidance for near-
term military acquisitions. These acquisitions are still determined
primarily by the PLA’s focus on deterring or defeating attacks on
Chinese territory, both actual and claimed, both continental and
maritime, through the acquisition of limited air, sea, and informa-
tion-denial capabilities. The larger strategic concepts then simply
serve to ensure that these near-term military acquisitions are not
fundamentally inconsistent with China’s likely long-range aspirations
of attaining some level of extended control over or at the very least
presence within distant operational areas that will become relevant
to its security interests as its overall national power increases.
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China’s Current Security Strategy: Features and Implications 129
______________
69Hsiung (1995), pp. 576–577.
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130 Interpreting China’s Grand Strategy: Past, Present, and Future
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70For a clear statement of current Chinese conservatism regarding territorial issues,
see Mao (1996). This work makes no reference to the possibility that China might in
future lay claim to former Chinese lands now under the undisputed control of other
states.
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China’s Current Security Strategy: Features and Implications 131
______________
71See “Agreement Between the Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
and the Government of the People’s Republic of China on the Guidelines of Mutual
Reduction of Forces and Confidence Building in the Military Field in the Area of the
Soviet-Chinese Border” (1990); and the later treaty, “Agreement Between the Russian
Federation, the Republic of Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, the Republic of
Tajikistan and the People’s Republic of China on Confidence Building in the Military
Field in the Border Area” (1996).
72 “Agreement Between the Russian Federation, the Republic of Kazakhstan, the
Kyrgyz Republic, the Republic of Tajikistan and the People’s Republic of China on
Confidence Building in the Military Field in the Border Area” (1996).
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132 Interpreting China’s Grand Strategy: Past, Present, and Future
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China’s Current Security Strategy: Features and Implications 133
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134 Interpreting China’s Grand Strategy: Past, Present, and Future
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China’s Current Security Strategy: Features and Implications 135
______________
73For an excellent summary of the issues involved in China’s quest to join the WTO,
see Rosen (1997).
74For a discussion of such concerns, which derive from China’s primary security ob-
jective of maintaining domestic order and well-being, see Pearson (1999), pp. 182–183.
75Wong (1996), p. 296.
76For instance, see speech by then PRC Foreign Minister Qian Qichen (1994).
77Kim (1999), especially pp. 60–71.
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136 Interpreting China’s Grand Strategy: Past, Present, and Future
______________
78Foot (1998).
79Klintworth (1997); Vatikiotis (1997); Wanandi (1996); and Bert (1993).
80Nathan (1999); and Nathan (1994).
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China’s Current Security Strategy: Features and Implications 137
______________
81“Envoy Comments on Declaration on Human Rights Defenders” (1998).
82For one example of a defense of the “Asian way,” see Zakaria (1994).
83Molander and Wilson (1993), p. xiii.
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138 Interpreting China’s Grand Strategy: Past, Present, and Future
Fifth, China has gone along with those international regimes that
notionally provide joint gains, if the initial private costs of participa-
tion can either be extorted, shifted, or written off. The best example
of such behavior is found in the issue-area of the environment,
where the efforts to control greenhouse gases, restrict carbon dioxide
______________
84For a review of early Chinese attitudes, see Pillsbury (1975). A good discussion on
current Chinese attitudes to high-entropy proliferation can be found in Garrett and
Glaser (1995/96), pp. 50–53.
85A good survey of the Chinese record with respect to participation and compliance
can be found in Swaine and Johnston (1999); and Frieman (1996). See also Garrett and
Glaser (1995/96); and Johnston (1996a).
86For details, see U.S. Senate (1998), pp. 3–16.
87Davis (1995), p. 595.
88Frieman (1996), p. 28.
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China’s Current Security Strategy: Features and Implications 139
______________
89Kim (1991), pp. 40–41.
90Sims (1996).
91Such behavior is also evident in the arms-control arena, as suggested by Swaine and
Johnston (1999).
92Economy (1998), p. 278.
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140 Interpreting China’s Grand Strategy: Past, Present, and Future
Sixth, China has also participated in regimes where the costs of uni-
lateral defection were very high. The best example here remains Chi-
na’s willingness to participate in the CTBT. Given the relatively
modest capabilities of China’s nuclear arsenal, all early indications
suggested that China would either abstain from participation or ex-
ploit the opposition to the CTBT emerging from other states, such as
India, to avoid signing the treaty.94 Over time, however, it became
clear that the United States had staked an inordinate amount of
diplomatic and political resources to have the treaty signed by all the
major nuclear-capable powers in the international system. The
sheer pressure applied by the United States and the implications of a
Chinese refusal to participate—perhaps affecting technology trans-
fers, membership in the WTO, and MFN status—finally resulted in a
Chinese accession to the treaty, but only after Beijing concluded a fi-
nal series of underground nuclear tests. To be sure, other considera-
tions also intervened: the declining utility of nuclear weapons, the
absence of any need to expand China’s present nuclear capabilities
in radically new directions, the recognition that China’s growing
power capabilities would always allow for a future breakout from the
treaty at relatively low cost in force majeure situations, and the not
inconsequential image concerns associated with China’s desire to be
seen as a responsible great power and as a just and principled state.
All these factors combined with a sensitivity to the high political
costs of being a nonsignatory finally ensured China’s successful par-
ticipation in the CTBT, even though, other things being equal, it
might have preferred to unilaterally “defect” on this, more than any
other, issue. 95
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93 This calculus is of course also evident in other policy areas, including bilateral
diplomatic, economic, and security relations with the United States.
94Garrett and Glaser (1995/96), pp. 53 ff.
95For a good discussion, see Johnston (1996b).
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China’s Current Security Strategy: Features and Implications 141
All told, therefore, the calculative strategy has paid off handsomely
for China: It has put it along a path that, if sustained, could make
China the largest economy in the world sometime in the first half of
the 21st century. Even more significantly, it has allowed such growth
to occur as a result of an export-led strategy that increasingly em-
ploys significant proportions of imported technology and inputs—an
amazing fact signifying that China has been able to rely upon both
the markets and, increasingly, the resources of its partners to create
the kind of growth that might eventually pose major concerns to its
economic partners, all without greatly unnerving those partners in
the interim. This does not imply that China’s partners in Asia and
elsewhere are unconcerned about the implications of China’s growth
in power. It implies only that such concerns have not resulted, thus
______________
96For example, Chinese purchases of advanced weapons from Russia are to a signifi-
cant extent a testimony to the failure of China’s defense industry to indigenously pro-
duce many such critical systems.
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142 Interpreting China’s Grand Strategy: Past, Present, and Future
far, in efforts to constrain China’s growth because the desire for abso-
lute gains on the part of all (including China) has outweighed the
corrosive concerns brought about by the problem of relative gains.
This represents the true success of the calculative strategy. By being
explicitly premised on a refusal to provoke fear and uncertainty as a
result of provocative Chinese actions, Beijing has succeeded,
whether intentionally or not, not only in desensitizing its trading
partners to the problems of relative gains but it has also, by rhetoric
and actions aimed at exploiting all sides’ desire for absolute gains,
created the bases for the kind of continued collaboration that in-
evitably results in further increases in Chinese power and capabili-
ties. Carried to its natural conclusion, the Chinese transition to true
great-power status could occur in large part because of its partners’
desire for trade and commercial intercourse so long as Beijing is
careful enough not to let any security competition short-circuit the
process in the interim.
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China’s Current Security Strategy: Features and Implications 143
______________
97A good survey of these regional developments, together with the role played by the
interaction of external fears (including local rivalries) with internal growth, domestic
business interests, and the search for regional prestige, can be found in Ball (1993/94).
Beijing has attempted to reassure the international community about its intentions
through the issuance of a defense White Paper in July 1998, but the lack of authentic
information about budget expenditures and numbers and the likely disposition and
purpose of forces makes it a less-than-complete document.
98The current Asian financial crisis could significantly reduce the pace of such a de-
velopment because it has constrained the ability and willingness of many Asian
countries to expand their military arsenals in response to increasing Chinese capabili-
ties. For a broad survey of these developments, see Simon (1998).
99Friedberg (1993/94) concludes that such an outcome is in fact likely.
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144 Interpreting China’s Grand Strategy: Past, Present, and Future
______________
100 Sanger (1997).
101 Shambaugh (1996a).
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China’s Current Security Strategy: Features and Implications 145
______________
102 The judgment that China’s modernization of its naval and air assets includes ele-
ments of an explicit battlespace control (as opposed to mere denial) capability is
based on both the diverse types of weapons platforms and support systems the Chi-
nese are acquiring or attempting to acquire (e.g., long-range surface and subsurface
combatants, more capable early warning and precision-strike assets, space-based
surveillance capabilities, and possibly one or more aircraft carriers), and the inherent
logic of geopolitics, technology, and operational considerations. Such factors suggest
that the maintenance of a robust sea-denial capability over time will eventually re-
quire increasingly more effective sea-control capabilities, especially if China wants to
maintain the security of maritime regions for hundreds of miles beyond its coastline,
as is implied by the “islands chain” concept.
103 The technologies required to sustain such operations are assessed in Tellis (1995).
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146 Interpreting China’s Grand Strategy: Past, Present, and Future
______________
104 This term is used by many Chinese elites to describe a U.S. strategy to weaken and
eventually destroy the existing Chinese political system from within, through the pro-
motion of Western political and social values and structures in China. As Betts notes,
“the liberal solution for pacifying international relations—liberal ideology—is pre-
cisely what present Chinese leaders perceive as a direct security threat to their
regime.” Betts (1993/94), p. 55.
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China’s Current Security Strategy: Features and Implications 147
______________
105 The future of the Korean peninsula would also be an issue directly affecting China
even though no sovereignty claims are at stake here.
106 Friedman (1994), especially Chapter 8; and Tien and Chu (1996).
107 Yue (1997).
108 For a good summary of these issues see Cheung (1996).
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148 Interpreting China’s Grand Strategy: Past, Present, and Future
______________
109 An excellent discussion of China’s strategic calculus with respect to the use of force
in the South China Sea can be found in Austin (1998), pp. 297–326.
110 Austin (1995).
111 Zhao (1997), pp. 733–734; and Chen (1997).
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China’s Current Security Strategy: Features and Implications 149
______________
112 Regarding PLA doctrine, see Godwin (1997). For Chinese nuclear force moderniz-
ation, see Johnston (1996b).
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150 Interpreting China’s Grand Strategy: Past, Present, and Future
that no mishaps occur in the interim, how long can the calculative
strategy be expected to last? Second, what, if any, posture can be ex-
pected to replace the calculative strategy after the latter has success-
fully run its course? The next chapter attempts to provide tentative
answers to both these questions.
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